Welcome to my world and beyond...

A collection of snippets of the books I write and, occasionally, my life and the things that inspire my writing...

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Eleri Stone: Tueday Two Cents' Worth

Today we welcome Author Eleri Stone to the Two Cents stage. She's answering the burning question: If you could share one piece of writing advice with other writers, what would it be? Take it away. Eleri!

My two cents…

One thing I wish I’d done a lot sooner in my
writing career is to seek out other writers. I didn’t feel that my lack of
connection to a writing community was such an awful thing when I was writing
for my own pleasure, though surely even then it would have been helpful. But once
I decided that I wanted to publish, knowing other writers really would have
come in handy. Instead, I started submitting stories, no beta readers or kindly
mentors or any idea of what I was doing. And really I have no excuse for that.
There are so many wonderfully supportive writing groups out there that if I’d
only looked around a little bit, I wouldn’t have gone into the whole publishing
thing so unprepared.

If you’re a romance writer like me, the RWA (Romance
Writers of America) is an incredible resource, not only for established writers
but also for people just starting out. There are a lot of great local groups
who meet in person to discuss the industry, bring in guest speakers and have
workshops.

There are also a ton of online groups where you
can get to know other writers. If you’re a new-ish writer, Absolute Write is a
good place to start. You can participate in Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing
Month) which takes place during the month of November. They have an active
forum section and can put you in touch with local writers who often meet up
during the month for write-ins. You can follow your favorite authors on social
media to see how they manage the writing and business side of things. You can
also participate in writer blog hops like Weekend Writing Warriors with Teresa
and me. I’ve met a bunch of wonderful authors through that group and it’s a lot
of fun, too. J

Finding
your tribe is such an important and satisfying thing. I really wish I’d started
looking sooner.

***

Eleri Stone
is a RITA-nominated author of paranormal and fantasy romance. She was born in
New Jersey, but now lives in Iowa with her husband and their three children.
All of her stories have some element of speculative fiction in them and they
all end with a happily-ever-after.

We are all way to close to our own work to be objective about it, and people close to us are likely to be uncritically supportive. It's vital to find people who'll say what we need to hear, rather than what we want to hear :)